


Time After Time

by rainbowumbrella



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Everyone Needs A Hug, Gen, Multi, Past Drug Addiction, Post-Canon, Reginald Hargreeves' A+ Parenting, Sibling Bonding, dysfunctional siblings trying not to be dysfunctional, more tags to be added as the story progresses!, probably, they'll get there give them time, time travel is wacky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-07-18
Packaged: 2020-05-28 09:07:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 13,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19390960
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainbowumbrella/pseuds/rainbowumbrella
Summary: Time travel had its perks.For one, it made it possible for them to escape the inevitable doom heading their way. It also gave them a second chance to try and avert the Apocalypse. But years into the past, they all had their own lives to lead and their own mistakes to fix, and every second that passed them by brought them closer to the Apocalypse.The disadvantages of time travel? Time is a fickle thing, and it does not enjoy it when people mess with it.





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> This first chapter is a prelude only, so the second will be coming right away!

The sound of Tiffany’s ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ filled the room, and Luther opened his eyes.

This wasn’t the theater. This wasn’t even the wreckage of the theater that he’d expected to find at the memory of the giant chunks of the moon hurtling towards the Earth (and maybe, he’d noted to himself, that meant that his father truly had sent him there for a reason). No, it was his room at the Academy. The space-themed mobile over his bed, the checkered curtains - it was all there, even though he’d watched it all come tumbling down mere hours before.

“Number One!” Came Sir Reginald’s voice, the source a little too close for comfort after everything that he’d learned over the past few days “Turn down this music at once! And come into my study, I believe I have a mission for you.”

His reaction was instant, almost instinctive. The music was promptly turned off, and before he knew it he was out in the corridor, following after his father as he led him to his study. Even as he did that, however, his brain worked on piecing together what was happening. His father was alive, the Academy was standing, and this… It was familiar, somehow.

And then it clicked.

Five.

Five must have been successful in altering the timeline, he must have brought them all back into the past so that they could fix everything that had gone wrong, so that they could help Vanya and stop the Apocalypse from ever happening. That was a relief. Or it would be if he hadn’t only just remembered that the world came to an end in the first place. His memories felt jumbled, things came to him and slipped away almost immediately. It must be a side effect from time-travel, he figured. It’d pass soon enough. Probably.

* * *

The sound of approaching sirens was the first thing that Diego heard as he opened his eyes to find himself… Somewhere.

The world was certainly not over, which was something that he was pretty sure could always be considered good news. What was not good news was the fact that he was covered in blood, out in the open, there were sirens approaching as he didn’t have the first clue as to what had happened, whether he’d been the victim or not. He always had a couple of knives on him, and that couldn’t possibly work in his favor.

Getting away from there was probably a good idea. Yeah, that was definitely what he was going to do.

Diego sunk into a nearby alley, hiding behind a large dumpster as he waited for any clues as to what might be going on. He was close enough to the police car that he could hear the radio and the officers reporting the situation as they arrived.

“We’ve got a man tied up on the floor, but - wait, he’s claiming he’s not the victim. He says he’s willing to confess. He’s suffered injuries but they’re not severe, I’m bringing him in. Officer Mendoza will scope out the place.” The voice was strangely familiar, but try as he might, Diego couldn’t place it. It reminded him of the early days of him and Patch, of the Academy and first dates that seemed to have happened an entire lifetime ago now. Despite the circumstances, his lips curled into a smile.

A sound coming from the wall beside him snapped him out of his thoughts, though, and he quickly raced down the alley. He remembered now.

He’d heard about a robbery gone wrong on the police radio and he’d raced to he scene. A whole family had been held at gunpoint, and one of them had been shot - that was where the blood had come from. He’d done the best he could to patch him up, just to make sure he made it until the police got there and called an ambulance. The robber had put up a bit of a fight and tried to flee several times, but Diego had made a very convincing argument regarding the number of knives currently in his belt. He’d given up pretty quickly after that.

It was just a bluff, but it worked surprisingly often.

Maybe it had something to do with the stories that used to pop up on the news regarding the missions of the Umbrella Academy. Honestly, he was sure he’d be scared, too, if he read all of that about someone.

* * *

“And that’s a wrap!”

Allison had never had any trouble remembering her lines. Of course, everyone forgot one thing or another every once in a while, but she had a way of just making it up as she went along, and her powers could easily persuade the director to accept her version rather than the script. Generally, though, her memory was pretty good.

So why was it that she couldn’t even remember what movie this was? The set was familiar,but her mind was rushing, and she couldn’t seem to focus for long enough to piece it together. All she could think about that the fact that she was in the middle of filming and she had no recollection of going there, of the scenes she’d just filmed, of anything. That couldn’t be right, something must have happened and -

Oh, no.

The moon, Vanya - goodness, the Apocalypse had happened, they’d failed. And Claire - oh, Claire. She hadn’t been there with her, and she must have been so scared. She’d failed her daughter in so many ways.

But… What was this? If the world had ended, why was she in the middle of filming? And… Patrick was there. He was waiting near the buffet, and he waved at her the moment their eyes met. He looked younger. And Claire - where was she? She desperately needed to see her daughter. She had so much to apologize for, so much she wanted to say to her, but she’d give anything to just hold her one last time.

“Allison!” Patrick insisted, standing up and walking over to her. The smile on his lips turned to concern as he approached, however. “Allison, are you okay, honey?”

She nodded, because what else could she do? She didn’t feel like explaining that she suddenly couldn’t remember what she was doing there, that she’d seen the world end and that part of her was starting to wonder whether this was some kind of afterlife. If it was, then where was Claire? She just wanted to know that her daughter was alright. Everything else was secondary. “Yeah, yeah. Just - long day.” She explained, offering Patrick a shaky smile.

“This movie is really taking a lot out of you, isn’t it? But you were brilliant today, and it’s almost over. Just a few more weeks and then you’re done, and then…” The smile on his face was so genuine that it broke her heart. She remembered now. She knew what this movie was, and she knew how that sentence ended.

Their wedding. Their wedding was going to take place two weeks after she finished filming. The wedding she’d rumored him into, the wedding that was built on manipulation after manipulation, until her world was everything that she’d wanted it to be. Oh, she couldn’t let this happen.

* * *

Huh.

Klaus didn’t remember checking into rehab. From how not absolutely horrible he felt, he assumed he must have been there for quite a while. He felt… Good even. He was stone-cold sober, too, he could tell. That meant that he must have been there for - what, a week? One whole week. And he had no memory of checking in.

Well, that didn’t bode well.

A nurse called him to the bathroom and handed him a collection cup. He said if it all checked out, he’d be getting his 30-day chip and leaving in the morning.

That was the first time those news made his stomach sink. How could he have been there for a whole month already? It wouldn’t be first time he had a pretty bad memory lapse, but he’d only ever lost a couple of days, at most. No matter what he did, no matter how bad it got, it was never more than a couple of days. So how was it possible that he was missing a whole month while he’d clearly spent the better part of it sober?

He was used to just rolling with the punches, though, so he took the cup with a smile, as if his mind weren’t desperately trying to piece things together, and he went into the bathroom.

It was only a few minutes later, as he lounged in his bed waiting for the results to come out, that it all started coming back to him. Vanya, the concert, the moon shattering in the sky - oh, they’d come so close, hadn’t they? They’d come so close, but in the end they had lost. He remembered resigning himself to his fate, but Five… Five was always a fighter, wasn’t he? He wouldn’t have that, he wouldn’t let himself lose, he wouldn’t let _them_ lose.

And then… And then what?

Slowly, the puzzle pieces started to fall together. He’d meant to take them into the past, and Klaus had pictured them arriving at the theater, all together, but they hadn’t, had they? They were already somewhere else at this point, and they’d just landed right back there. The paradoxes - time travel was basically a migraine, wasn’t it? Of course it had to be part of Five’s power. It was only fitting.

“Klaus?” The nurse said as he peeked into the dorm area.

Klaus only glanced up, the smile on his lips now a little more genuine. He’d figured it out, and he was pretty damn pleased with himself. Plus, he supposed he’d been lucky. Out of all the terrible times in his life, Five had actually picked a pretty decent moment to drop him in. He was sober, so he wouldn’t have to go through it all again, and he was just about to leave rehab. It was good timing.

“You’re good to go. I guess we’ll see you in the morning to get you discharged.”

* * *

If a migraine could have a migraine, Five was pretty sure that that was what it’d feel like.

The pain was blinding, he could barely see, and he just stumbled forward, hands reaching out in an attempt to catch himself on something. He was exhausted, he needed - he needed some sleep. Yeah, just a few minutes of sleep. A little power nap, then he’d make up the rest with caffeine, assuming he could find any decent coffee in this place.

He wasn’t sure how he reached the ground. Logically, he must have fallen, but logic was not his friend at that moment, and his arrival on the floor would forever remain a mystery to him. Something about this should have worried him. He wasn’t sure what, though.

Maybe he’d know in the morning.

Yeah, he could figure it all out then.

* * *

Ben wasn’t used to feeling anything anymore.

Emotions were one thing, but a physical sensation? It was complicated when you didn’t have a body. The feeling of Diego’s arm and Klaus’ cheek still lingered in his hands - they were the first things that he’d felt in years. And then there was the monster under skin, of course, the pain of letting the tentacles out during the fight at the theater. He was reluctant to count that one, though, for him and the monster… It was a complicated relationship in nearly every sense of the word.

But he’d felt this. He’d felt himself being pulled through… Something. He’d felt himself land, and he wasn’t even sure how or why or where. All he knew was that it shouldn’t possible, and yet it’d happened.

And suddenly, he wasn’t at the theater anymore. He was… In rehab. Klaus. Right, of course Klaus was nearby. Although really, it was usually he who was near Klaus, for herding his brother anywhere was just about impossible enough that Hera might have set it as a task for Hercules if Klaus had existed at the time. He stuck around, though, both because he cared and because it was awfully lonely when he left.

He went to check on Klaus, make sure he was alright - he had some rough times in rehab and he wasn’t sure at what point they were there, but he was in the bathroom, and he certainly wouldn’t intrude. So instead Ben used that time to try and figure out when they were - if nothing else, it’d help him to test his hypothesis - Five had managed to pull them across time and dropped them into… Well, some time before Vanya but clearly after his death.

The newspaper the guy at reception was reading said April 26th, 2012.

Seven years. They had travelled seven years in time.


	2. A Myriad of Phone Calls

“Has anyone heard from Vanya yet? Or Five?”

Diego’s question was met with a silence that filled the tiny living room of Patch’s apartment. It was far from an ideal meeting place, but with Sir Reginald and Pogo back at the Academy, Allison living far from the city and Klaus not having any place to call home, it was pretty much the best they had.

Vanya, they’d all noted in the myriad of phone calls they’d made to each other that night, probably had an apartment in the city somewhere. They were all horrified to realize that they didn’t know where, though. Not at that point.

“Great. So now what, we just… Wait until they turn up? What if Vanya wakes up and continues what she started? We’ll just have made the end of the world come a little sooner!” Luther retorted, earning himself a scowl from Diego and an exasperated look from Klaus.

“She won’t.” Diego assured him.

Klaus nodded in agreement. “She didn’t mean to end the world yesterday, she was just defending herself, it was an accident!”

“We don’t know that.” Luther insisted.

Diego shook his head. “We do.”

Tension filled the room as Luther and Diego glared at each other. Klaus hung back, more than happy to stay out of this now that he’d made his position abundantly clear. Vanya, he wholeheartedly believed, had never meant to end the world, and their actions had pushed her to that - or rather, they’d pushed her to push her powers until she accidentally destroyed the moon.

He could yell himself hoarse and Luther wouldn’t hear him, though. At moments like this, he didn’t know where the disagreement ended and the unresolved issues and rivalry between the two brothers began.

Things stayed quiet, though, and after a few moments of waiting for the tension to spark a fight between the two of them, Klaus cleared his throat.

“What about Five?” He asked. “I mean, time-travel by itself is rough, but bringing all six of us with him… I don’t know, it must have taken a lot out of him.”

The others glanced between themselves, and for a moment, Klaus contemplated the wild idea that maybe they tried to guess what the other was thinking so that they could assume an opposite position. This time, at least, however, it seemed like he was wrong, for they both shrugged.

“He’s been doing this a lot longer than us, I’m sure he’s fine.” Diego argued.

That was true. He’d time-travelled enough times before that he’d recognized the symptoms immediately when he saw them on Klaus, which spoke lengths as to his experience with the matter - something he’d been less than open about - and he had survived for years in the Apocalypse. Odds were that he was fine, he could certainly take care of himself. But he’d never done this before, he’d never brought a passenger along, much less six. What if it was too much?

“No, Klaus is right. We should call up the hospitals in the area, see if maybe he didn’t turn up in one of them. Maybe he’s unconscious or he didn’t know our numbers.”

They all turned towards the front door as they heard a new voice join them, followed by the sound of a door closing. Allison was shrugging off her coat and placing it on top of a small bag, which still carried an airline tag. Although she was her usual picture of grace, there was something about her stance that bothered Klaus, something… Familiar. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but he was sure that there was something off.

Luther opened his mouth to say something, but Diego beat him to it. “Look, I care about Five just as much as any of us, but we’ve got more important things to do than to run around town looking for him. He’ll find us.”

“What if he’s hurt? What if he needs us?” Klaus argued, frowning.

Allison nodded in support. “What else do we even need to do that’s so urgent, Diego? You saw the date. We’re seven years in the past. There’s seven years between us an the Apocalypse, seven years for us to fix this. We have time to go looking for Five. Do you have a Yellow Pages? Or… Maybe we should just go to the hospitals, keep the line clear in case he or Vanya call. Any word from her yet?”

It was Luther that replied, shaking his head. “No, not yet. Maybe she’s not going to call. It’s not like - well, you know how yesterday went. She destroyed the Academy, she murdered Mom and Pogo, she nearly did the same to all of us.”

Despite their earlier very vocal disagreement on Luther’s stance towards Vanya, both Klaus and Diego fell silent at that. She had done all of that. Klaus would never dream of dismissing all the trauma she went through, or how hard it must be to control her new abilities or how much of all of this was directly triggered by them, but… They’d all lost so much. Jumping to her defense at Luther’s attacks was so automatic that maybe they’d all failed to take a cold hard look at everything that had happened the previous day.

It was all so crazy.

“She’ll call.” Diego finally broke the silence. “She will. I don’t know if she has any of our numbers, but there’s always the Academy. She’ll find us.”

Another pause befell them. Some tension still lingered in the air, but it’d been masked by a loud silence, that feeling that everyone was actively not saying anything. It was a common occurrence in the Hargreeves household, but there was something different about this one, something quiet, something sad.

“Well,” Klaus began, hands slapping down on his thighs loudly, as if he wanted to snap the silence way. “This has been fun, but I’m afraid I need to go… Be somewhere else.”

He made it all of two paces before Allison reached out and grabbed his arm. He felt a hand on his shoulder, and a quick glance backwards showed him that Diego, too, had moved to stop him. A loud groan left his lips, but he relented, letting himself fall onto the nearby bean bag.

“What happened to ‘we need to find Five’, huh?” Diego asked him, raising a questioning eyebrow at him. Briefly, Klaus wondered if that was something they taught him at the Police Academy, because it seemed like the perfect imitation of every cop show which he’d ever watched a few episodes of before. “What, does all that determination just go away when you actually need to do something? Because this is serious, Klaus. We fought the Apocalypse before and we lost.”

He threw his head back with a sigh. “I’m not running away from finding Five, I’m going to look for him.” He explained, not making any effort to hide the annoyance in his tone. Why did everyone always assume the worst of him? Oh, right. He’d given them at least some reason to think that, hadn’t he? “I asked Ben to go scouting ahead, if you must know. He hasn’t come back in a while, so I thought I’d go check on him. Who knows, maybe he’s stuck on some long, boring conversation about quantum physics - I have to go save him! So… There. Can I go now?”

“Why didn’t you just say so?” Luther asked, raising an eyebrow at him.

Klaus shrugged.

“Okay, you go after Ben. Diego, you stay here and wait to see if someone calls. I’ll do the same at the Academy. Allison, you can - “

Allison interrupted before he could finish. “I’ll go with Klaus. Maybe we can split up, search a larger area.”

They disbanded without another word.

* * *

Klaus was looking for Ben. That much was true. But it wasn’t entirely because he was worried about him - after all, his brother was a ghost, nothing could really hurt him anymore. It wasn’t because he was worried that he might be stuck talking about quantum physics with Five, either, since Five could neither see him nor hear him and therefore couldn’t exactly hold a conversation with him. No, he was looking for Ben because something felt off. He’d never been away from him for so long, and whenever he tried to summon him back, something felt… Strange. Like he was playing tug-of-war and poor Ben was the rope.

He could still sense his brother, which somehow was even stranger. Usually, he could feel his presence, just as he could feel the presence of any ghost, but only if he was nearby. This more closely resembled following a strange aura that you could neither see nor quite feel, but which was still undeniably there, and which you somehow instinctively knew what it was and where it was leading despite the fact that you’d never seen it before.

New powers. Sure. Why not? The old ones clearly weren’t enough of a pain.

“Klaus? Klaus, slow down! Where are you going? I can rent us a car, we don’t have - watch out!” A car zoomed by in what was perhaps too close for comfort, but Klaus ignored it. “Klaus!”

Suddenly, there was a hand on his shoulder, gently holding him in place, and he finally came to a halt, turning around. Allison’s worried eyes were staring at him, giving him a once-over that seemed to search his very soul. Once she was satisfied, she let out a sigh. “Okay, you’re not high. So what’s going on, Klaus? Why are you running off like that? I’m worried about Five, too, but we’ll find him.”

“It’s not - it’s Ben.” He shook his head, letting out a sigh. “I can’t summon him, I can’t - I can always summon him.”

She frowned at that, concerned. “Do you think your powers are… I don’t know, malfunctioning? Maybe you just strained yourself too much back at the theater, maybe you just need some time to recharge.”

“I don’t know, I can still _see_ them, I can still feel that Ben is here, but I just can’t… I can’t bring him here. It’s like - I don’t know, tugging at a loose rope.” He sighed and shook his head in frustration, running a tired hand over his face. His eyes closed for a moment, and when they opened again, he frowned and reached out place his hands on Allison’s shoulders and gently move her a few steps to the left. “There, that’s better.”

Allison frowned and glanced behind her, but she could see nothing out of the ordinary. She shrugged it off. It wasn’t like any of them fully understood Klaus.

“Okay, then - let’s go see what’s at the end of that rope. Just… At least look both ways before crossing the street. Please.”

Her tone was what did him in, and Klaus nodded. “Okay. I promise. No, I pinky swear. So you don’t have to worry, I’d never break a pinky swear.”

There was a smile on his lips as he held out his pinky, and it wasn’t long before Allison was smiling back, her pinky hooking with his. Honestly, he couldn’t remember where they’d even learned that considering how little outside influence their father had allowed in their household, but they’d done this as kids fairly often. Most of the others had found it to be childish, so it’d been very much a ‘ _them_ ’ thing, something that was maintained, even if it became more scarce, as they grew older.

“I can’t believe you remember that.” She chuckled, shaking her head somewhat fondly.

“Of course I remember pinky promises!”

And with that, he continued to make his way towards the hospital, now making a conscious effort to walk a little more slowly, to be a little more careful. Ben was dead, he told himself. Granted, it didn’t sound like much of a comfort, but at least it meant that he couldn’t get any _more_ dead, right? He’d fine. He could wait. Klaus didn’t have to run to him, nothing bad could happen to him anymore.

* * *

The woman at reception was the picture of unhelpfulness.

She knew Klaus, which was already less than helpful - she seemed not to take him very seriously, probably figuring he was only there to try and get a fix - and as much as he did his best to convince her that this was important, she didn’t seem to be listening.

But Allison? Even without using her power, she had a commanding presence and a way of talking to people - it was different from Klaus’, but just as effective. It was she who managed to learn that they had, indeed, admitted someone matching Five’s description, who’d been found unconscious in the street some time in the previous evening. She also managed to get his room number, as well as permission to visit him, though they were warned that from the notes on his file, it was unlikely that he’d have regained consciousness just yet.

They found Ben in the room.

Or rather, Klaus did.

Ben was standing over Five’s bed, worried eyes fixed on him, so lost in thought that he didn’t even seem to notice it when they entered the room. The look on his face was one that Klaus knew all too well, one he’d woken up to one too many times in rooms that looked far too much like this one, save for the fact that the pediatrics department was, in his opinion, far more well decorated. It made him worry that there was more to Five’s predicament than what the nurse at the front desk had told him.

“Ben, where - “

“He’s in a coma.”

Ben’s words made Klaus’ heart still, and it must have shown in his face for in a matter of seconds he could feel Allison’s hand on his shoulder. Suddenly, he was incredibly grateful for the fact that she’d come along.

“No, he - he can’t be. I know bringing extra luggage along on a time-travel trip wasn’t easy for him, but it’s - it’s Five! He’s always spatial-jumping around like it’s easier than walking.” _It couldn’t be true, it couldn’t be true, it couldn’t be true._

Ben shook his head. “I heard the doctors talking. They don’t know about Five’s powers, so they don’t know what caused it, but… He’s in a coma. They don’t know if he’s waking up.”

Klaus was fairly sure that there hadn’t been a chair behind him, but he suddenly found himself sitting in one rather than collapsing on the floor like his knees had expected. Somehow, the floor seemed more appropriate, but he couldn’t find it in him to slip himself out of the chair. Instead, he just sat there, breathing erratic, tears threatening to slip out of his eyes, which were focused on a spot on the floor like it held the answers to all of their problems.

“But… If they don’t know about his powers, then maybe they just don’t know how to help. Maybe - maybe we just need to get him back to the Academy. Dad will know what to do. He’s been studying us for years, he’s got to know _something_.” Klaus argued, his tone all but pleading with Ben to agree with him.

Before Ben had the chance to reply, however, Allison cut in. She was crouched in front of him now, eyes focused on him in such a maternal way that it almost made the tears finally fall. “Klaus, talk to me. What’s going on? What’s Ben saying?”

He had to fight the lump that had seemed to form in his throat to be able to speak, and when he did, his voice was tight. “It’s Five. He’s - he’s in a coma. Ben overheard the doctors talking. They don’t know if he’s waking up, but - but they don’t know about his powers, either. They don’t know how it happened, they don’t - “

“They don’t know shit. How surprising. Can we get out of here now?”

In almost complete synchrony, three heads turned towards the bed. There, now sitting up as if nothing had happened at all, was Number Five.


	3. Eudora

There’d been no sign of Vanya yet, and Diego was growing impatient.

Why sit and wait for her to call instead of going out and looking for her? Sure, he’d been completely in favor of that before, but now… He didn’t like being benched. He didn’t like this waiting, he didn’t like feeling useless. Part of him couldn’t help but wonder whether this was what Klaus felt like every time they benched him. Oh, they had good reason for that, but still, he hated feeling so restless.

There had to be something that he could do and still tend to the phone, still be there to answer it should Vanya call.

When he felt like he simply couldn’t take it anymore, he heard the sound of keys entering the lock, and a few moments later, his heart nearly leapt out of his chest.

Eudora.

Eudora Patch, alive and well.

It took every ounce of strength in his being not to start crying right there and then. He’d known, of course, that she was alive in this part of the timeline. He’d known that he’d see her again - they were still together at this point, he was still in the police academy, and they were still dating despite how rough of a ride it was considering how most people in the force saw him. Of course he’d see her again, she was a huge part of his life - she always had been, since they started to get closer, and always would be, but she was an especially big part of it now.

And yet he could hardly believe his eyes as he looked at her, a huge smile forming on his face.

She must have noticed it, because she raised an eyebrow at him, a puzzled, if amused, look on her face. “What, do I have something on my face?” A pause. After a moment, she just laughed and shook her head. “Okay, then. I’m… Happy to see you, too.”

But he still didn’t say anything. He just stared at her and smiled, drinking in every moment of this, because clearly he hadn’t known just how special each and every one of them were. Besides, he didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know how to act normal when she’d been dead, he’d seen her body and yet there she was, alive and well, seven years in the past. He wasn’t even sure that he could speak, that he could bring himself to form words in his mind and string them together into a sentence.

“Diego, what’s wrong?” She closed the distance between them, a frown on her face.

That finally snapped him out of it, though the smile never left his face. It couldn’t - he felt like it was etched in place forever, and he absolutely did not have a problem with that. “Nothing, nothing, just… I missed you.” Cheesy, but dammit, he didn’t care at that moment.

“Yeah, well, then you could have shown up to class. I had to cover fo you, _again_. Diego, I love you and I know that you have a lot to work through with your past but this vigilante stuff has _got_ to stop. Where even were you last night? You can’t keep disappearing like this and just expect me to be okay with it. I worry, and - dammit, Diego, there’s a reason why the police do things the way they do. If you want to be on the force, then you really need to understand that.”

He stared at her for a few more moments, the smile still on his face, though it was slowly morphing into a bit of a smirk, and he could see how she was slowly getting infuriated. “You practice that all night?” He raised an eyebrow at her.

She fought a smile for a few moments before finally giving up, though she did roll her eyes at him. “All lunch, if you must know.” She let out an exasperated sigh. “You’re never gonna change, are you?”

Oh, if only she knew.

“Nope. But you know you love it.”

“I do, I do. Oh, Lord, give me strength.” She let out a bit of a chuckle, sighing. “You’re gonna get into some real big trouble one day, Diego, and I can’t promise I’m always going to be around to bail you out. Hell, I can’t promise that I will even if I am there. Some of us are trying to take our careers seriously.”

She shook her head, then she leaned down to give him a kiss, which he eagerly returned. This, it was… Heaven. He’d missed this, he’d missed _them_ , ever since they’d broken up. They’d had very good reasons to go their separate ways, there were too many things about them that just didn’t work, but he’d missed her. He’d always love her, one way or another, and he missed her. He just wished that things could have worked between them.

This, though - it wasn’t right. She deserved to know.

He couldn’t pretend to be the same Diego she knew, he couldn’t pretend like everything was normal. As much as he wanted to just step back into this part of his life, Eudora deserved better than to be kept in the dark, and if he continued this charade, then he’d just feel like he used her, deceived her, and that was something he would never do, something he doubted he’d be able to do live with if he did.

“Wait, wait.” He moved to place his hands on her shoulder and gently push her away. “I’ve got something I need to tell you, and it’s going to sound crazy, but… You should know. You should.”

A frown formed on her face, and she moved to take a seat across from him. “You’re not in trouble, are you? Because Diego, if you are - “

He cut her off, shaking his head. “No, no, it’s - it’s nothing like that. You know how me and my siblings all have powers? Well, you remember little Number Five?”

She nodded. “Yeah, he disappeared when you all were kids, didn’t he? I remember seeing that on TV, I can’t even imagine what that was like for you.”

“Yeah, well, he came back. It’s a long story, and I’ll be honest, a lot of what he saidbarely even makes sense, but… Honestly, that’s not even the biggest thing. He came back seven years from now talking about the Apocalypse, and the craziest thing is that he was right, the world ended the day he said it would. And we couldn’t stop it. We tried, but we couldn’t. So he took us back in time, we’ve got another shot at this.”

It was too much to dump on her. He realized that as he reached the end of his sentence, but dammit, he was just glad that he’d made it through. His heart was racing in his chest as he watched her, stilling at every expression that crossed her face in fear that it might be the last and that she might just bail. After all, this - it was insane. He knew it was.

“Seven years from now?” The silence had hung thick between them, and when she spoke, it almost startled Diego.

He nodded.

“So you’re from the future. You’re from - what, 2019?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I am.”

She pinched the bridge of her nose, shaking her head. “Diego, that’s - you know, if you were anyone else, I don’t know if I’d believe you.”

“But you do?”

“Yeah. I do.” She let out a long sigh, shaking her head one more time. “I do, because I’ve seen what you can do, what all of your siblings can do. If you’re telling me that Number Five is back and he can time travel somehow, then I believe you. But… God, that means you’re not… You’re not the same Diego I kissed goodbye yesterday, are you?”

He shook his head. “No, I’m not. For me, that happened seven years ago.”

“Wow.” She bit her lip, closing her eyes and shaking her head for a third time. “Oh, I knew letting you into my life was going to come with a lot of weird, but this… This takes the cake.”

Silence hung heavily over them once again, and as much as thoughts constantly raced by Diego’s mind, words begging him to be said, he didn’t dare break it. Silence meant that she was thinking. Silence meant that there was a chance that somehow she would be okay with this.

“What happens? Between us, I mean. I know you probably can’t tell me anything about my own future, but now that you’re here, then… None of that is going to happen, right? Not the way that it did the first time around.”

Huh, it’d never occurred to him to ask Five about the laws of time travel. Really, until now it hadn’t been all that relevant, and the week that had gone by since his brother’s arrival hadn’t exactly been an easy ride, so he supposed none of them had really had much time to worry about things like that. Could he tell her about any of that, or would it create some kind of paradox? Was it bad that he’d even told her about time-traveling at all, about the Apocalypse and Number Five? According to pretty much every science fiction movie he’d ever heard of, it was probably bad. But - oh, who was he kidding? He didn’t really care about that. They’d already screwed up the timeline, why worry about the little things?

“We broke up. About - oh, just shy of one month from now. After I got kicked out of the Academy. Same day, actually. Not exactly what you’d call a fun day. But we were headed that way for a while already. You never did like the hero business.”

That actually got a laugh from her, and Diego could swear that it was the most beautiful sound in the world. It didn’t matter whether they got back together or not, none of that mattered. She was alive, and he couldn’t be more grateful for that.

“You mean the vigilante business? As in fighting crime with no rules, no protocols, no oversight - just determining right and wrong on your own terms, without needing any evidence or a jury to tell you whether they’re the bag guys or not? Yeah, no, I never liked that. Maybe if you hadn’t gotten yourself kicked out of the Academy, you’d understand.” And there it was, that little smirk that told him that despite the fact that she was mad at him, it wouldn’t stick. She still cared, one way or another.

“Hey, my way gets results.”

“And my way gets convictions.” She raised an eyebrow at him, as if daring him to argue against that, but it only lasted for a few seconds before she let out a small chuckle. “Are we really still going to be having this argument seven years from now?”

“What makes you think we’ll still be talking seven years from now?”

“Oh, I don’t know, how about the way you’re clearly comfortable here, around me, despite the fact that we break up in one month?” There was a knowing smirk on her lips, like she’d just been waiting for him to ask her that. “If you asked me to talk to an ex-boyfriend I haven’t seen in a year I’d - I don’t even know what I’d do. Seven years? That’s crazy. But you’re pretty comfortable over there, Hargreeves.”

He was. Of course he was comfortable, he’d never stopped being friends with Eudora. They were both a pain in each other’s asses, but they were friends. They’d never quite shaken the bond they’d made.

There was no cocky remark, no retort of any kind, however. He just smiled at her, and they fell into another long silence. It was clear that she had a lot on her mind, and Diego wished that he knew what it was, he wished that he could tell how she was feeling about this, but he knew her well enough to know that pushing for answers would just make things worse. He’d just have to be patient, no matter how excruciating that might be.

And finally, she broke the silence.

“Look, Diego, I think… I think I need some space, some time to think about all of this. I mean, you know _me_ , of course you do, but… I don’t know if I know you. You’ve got seven years of history with me that I just - they’re not even going to happen for me. So - I need to think. I just need some time.”

Diego nodded, swallowing thick. It wasn’t unexpected, but it still wasn’t good. Or maybe it was, maybe it was best that all of this happen now than when they were both knee deep in a relationship that just wasn’t going to work, that just had too many unresolved issues.

Maybe.

Probably.

But it wasn’t easy to see that.

“Okay. I’m just gonna - yeah.” He stood up from his seat and started to make his way towards the door. Before he could reach it, though, he turned around. “Hey, uh - if someone calls here looking for me, just tell them to call the Academy, okay?”

She raised her eyebrows at that. “The Academy? You mean - oh, no, you don’t mean the Umbrella Academy, do you? You’re going back there? Diego, I don’t want you to feel like -“

He shook his head, raising his hands to stop her before she could go any further. “No, no, it’s not - it’s not like that, Eudora. Yeah, I’m going back there, but it’s got nothing to do with this. It’s just… It’s complicated. Please, just don’t… Don’t worry about it.”

There was another long stretch of silence, Eudora regarding him with more worry than he’d ever seen in her eyes. It made him wonder how much she saw of the scars he bore from having grown up there, whether he could even see all of them. He’d been the first to call their father out on what he did to them, he’d been the first to leave, but even then… Sometimes he wondered if he saw all of it or not.

Finally, she nodded.

“Okay. I’ll tell them. Just… Please be careful.”

Diego smiled, and for once, he didn’t retort. He just nodded and headed out the door before he could change his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't mean for this chapter to end up being all Diego and Eudora, but apparently they had a lot they needed to discuss. But that means another double update! The next chapter should be up just a few minutes after this one.


	4. Against Recommendations

“So you’re telling me his name is Five. Five Hargreeves. Is Five short for something?"

The nurse was looking at Allison and Klaus with disbelieving eyes, and Klaus recognized that expression. She was just about a minute away from calling security. Of course they wouldn’t believe that Five was their brother, their brother who had disappeared sixteen years ago - no, ten years ago - and who’d been thirteen at the time. Time travel was just wacky.

“Yes, Fivel. The poor thing just really hates his name, he’s always gone by Five.” Klaus’ tone was dramatic enough that the nurse seemed torn between amusement, concern and irritation.

Five, however, had no such quandaries. “No, my name _is_ Five. And this idiot here is Klaus, and that’s Allison. They’re my siblings. Can we go now?”

“Look, I’m sorry, but you’re a minor and until I have proof that these are your legal guardians, there’s nothing I can do. You’re staying. Besides, I don’t know what you went through, kid, but it took a lot out of you. You should be resting.”

“I _have_ rested. Now I’m ready to go home. And I’m not a minor, I’m fifty-eight years old, and I’m not staying here.” Five’s tone was one of barely restrained anger, and Klaus and Allison exchanged worried looks. They both knew how short their brother’s fuse could be, and there was every chance that this well-meaning nurse would end getting the brunt of it.

The nurse looked less than impressed. “Sure you are. You’re not leaving, kid, and that’s final. Now if you two can show me the required documents, I’ll be happy to speak with the doctor about discharging him, but I’ve got to warn you, he’d be leaving against recommendations.”

A small sigh escaped Klaus’ lips. Great, this was just - oh, perfect. Now they were going to have to figure out a way to prove that Five was their brother, and…

Dad was still alive in this timeline, wasn’t he? So even if they could prove that Five was indeed their brother, if they stuck to the idea that was thirteen years old and not fifty-eight, as he truly was, then it was their father that they’d go to for all those decisions. Their father, who he was sure they’d all been hoping to avoid. Great.

It seemed like he wasn’t the only one who’d had the realization of how complicated things had become, however. Five threw himself back on the bed with a grunt of frustration, and Allison sat on the chair with her head in her hands. He’d really been hoping to see that annoying smirk on Five’s lips that suggested that he thought he was better than any of them, or that satisfied look on Allison’s face that told him she’d thought of something and was very pleased with herself.

Of course, she could always rumor them out of this, but he knew she didn’t want to do that anymore, and he wouldn’t push it. If they had to go to their father for this, then… So be it. He knew that they were kidding themselves if they thought they’d manage to go the next seven years without talking to him, anyway.

“So… What now? How do we prove this to them?” Klaus asked, glancing from Allison to Five.

Five pushed himself up from the bed, shaking his head. “We don’t. I’m not sticking around until we can figure out how to convince any of those idiots of anything. I could be here for weeks. No, I’m leaving. I’ll see you guys back at Diego’s.”

Klaus and Allison both cried out and reached out to stop him, but their hands were met only with empty air. Five was gone.

* * *

“What do we do now?”

It was Allison who broke the silence - they’d been sitting and mulling on this for several minutes now, and she could swear that she could hear the clock ticking their seconds away. Sooner or later a doctor or a nurse would come in, find Five missing, and they would be in a world of trouble. After all, who would believe that the kid who’d just woken up from a coma had used his powers to blink out of the hospital? Granted, the doctors and nurses had all had to deal with Five already, so they knew how he could be, but she wasn’t liking their chances.

“We run, we get out of there before they see that Five’s gone and… And we’ll be fine, right?” From his tone, she couldn’t tell whether he was trying to convince her or himself.

She shook her head. “If we’re here when they find out then they’ll know we didn’t take him. We can just say he ran off and we couldn’t stop him.” She suggested. It was the truth, after all - Five had run off and they had tried to stop him. They could just leave out the part about his powers until they had a little more proof of that.

Klaus, however, didn’t seem very convinced. “What if they think we ran off with him and came back? If we just go, then maybe they won’t know where to find us.”

“They have our names, Klaus. And besides, do you really want to just run off on this?”

He shrugged. “I’ve done it before. Different situations, but…”

Of course. Sometimes she forgot how different their lives were. It was strange to think that they’d all grown up together, trained together, gone on missions together, and yet ended up with such different lives. It made her wonder how much change it’d take for her to have ended up in the same situation as Klaus. She’d always used her powers to get everything that she wanted, but what if she hadn’t had that? What if instead she saw ghosts, or could curve anything that she threw? Would she still have become an actress?

Klaus must have noticed her silence, for when she looked up from the spot on the floor she’d been watching intently, her brother was sitting beside her on the bed, having abandoned the chair next to the window.

“Hey, it’s going to be fine. I mean, worst case scenario - and I mean really worst case, because I don’t know about you, but I’d rather study Five’s entire collection of physics books before doing that, but… Worst case scenario, there’s always Dad.” He wrapped an arm over her shoulders and pulled her closer, and she smiled softly, leaning up against his shoulder.

Yeah, he was right. Worst case scenario, there was always Dad.

She didn’t reply, and he didn’t push. The two of them fell into a comfortable silence as they mulled over the situation, trying to come up with an alternative they both felt confident about. Even if he hadn’t said anything, or even implied it in any way, she knew that he had to be thinking the same as her - she could easily rumor them out of this.

_‘I heard a rumor Five was discharged’;_

_‘I heard a rumor you saw him spatial-jump away’;_

_‘I heard a rumor Five was here and you told us to go home’._

It would be so easy.

But no, she wouldn’t do that. She didn’t do that anymore. She had seven years of her life back, a second chance to do things right. Claire wasn’t even born yet, she was still an embryo inside of her - she wasn’t even showing yet. Soon. By the time the wedding came around, she’d already had to make a few adjustments to her dress. But not just yet. She could be a better mom to her, but not if she fell back into old patterns.

They’d just have to figure this out on their own.

Suddenly, she was shaken from her thoughts by Klaus jumping up, wide eyes looking from the door to the spot right beside it. Instinctively, she followed suit, though she had no idea why she was standing or what she was supposed to be looking for.

“They’re coming.” He told her, slowly backing away from the door until his legs hit the bed and he almost fell backwards.

She nodded, glancing around the room in a last-ditch attempt to come up with an alternative. Nothing came to mind.

This was it, then.

“Klaus.”

He didn’t answer.

She let out a small sigh and moved to stand in front of him, hands moving to his shoulders to try and keep his attention on her. “Klaus, we need to be on the same page about this. Are we staying or are we going?”

He took a shaky breath before answering, eyes moving from the door to a spot somewhere behind her. “I’m not leaving without you.”

That was all the answer she needed. With a nod, she let him go and quickly moved to the door, cracking it open slightly and peering through. It seemed liked the corridor was empty. “Come on!” She gestured for him to approach, and hesitantly, Klaus stepped forward.

“Ben says he’ll scout ahead, tell us where to go.” He whispered.

Allison nodded, carefully stepping out, for once thankful to the years of training her father had put them through - it’d been seven years since she’d left the Academy, even longer since she’d stopped adhering to the strict training regimen Sir Reginald imposed on them, but she knew they’d done it long enough and from such a young age that it was second nature to them, just as their father had wanted it to be.

Sneaking through the hallways would be easy enough.

Or at least that was what she told herself when her heart started to race every time they came to a crossroads and she blindly followed Klaus’ whispered instructions. They could do this, they’d been trained for far worse.

Left, straight ahead, right, left, right, go straight.

Elevator. No, the stairs.

Sharp right. No, the other right.

Her heart hammered inside her chest.

More than once, she was pretty sure that they were sent into a loop, and she didn’t dare ask whether they were avoiding someone or whether Ben had just gotten lost for a second. She never glanced back, she never said a word - she just focused on the path ahead of them, on acting like everything was fine, and on making sure they didn’t get separated.

When they walked out the front door and no one stopped them, she felt like she could cry in relief.

* * *

Neither one of them looked back as they walked out of the hospital. They’d made their choice, there was no turning back now - neither of them wanted to know what they were leaving behind, what mess Five had created for them. Hopefully, it would all sort itself out soon. Hopefully, they’d made the right choice.

Somehow, though, Allison doubted it, and Klaus seemed uneasy enough beside her that she suspected he felt the same way.

At Diego’s - or rather, Eudora’s - they found not their brothers but instead the woman that Klaus confirmed to be Eudora herself. He was pleasantly surprised to find that she recognized him - he hadn’t been sure whether they’d met yet at this point in time. They would soon, either when he was crashing at Diego’s place or when she picked him up for something or another. He’d become a regular at her desk in… Oh, just about a year, probably.

Instead of letting them in, though, she informed them that Diego had left for the Academy, and that she’d told Five the same just about half an hour earlier.

They thanked her and left, but stopped just as soon as they were out of sight, both seeming equally confused. Why would Diego go back to the Academy? Had something happened? When he left twelve years ago by their original timeline, he’d promised to never step foot in that house again, not while their father still lived. Why break that promise now?

He wouldn’t, not unless he had a very good reason. Klaus and Allison exchanged a look, and it told them everything that they needed know - they had to go back. Regardless of whether or not they wanted to see their father, they had to go meet Diego.


	5. The Academy

Sir Reginald had not been able to understand why Luther, his ever-faithful Number One, had suddenly refused a mission. Questions had been asked, Number Three’s recent departure had been brought up - right, Luther had thought, he’d almost forgotten that Allison had left the night before the mission where he almost died - and yet no answers had been found.

It was simply unacceptable.

Luther himself was confused when the word ‘no’ escaped his lips. He wasn’t sure that he’d ever said it to his father before. And yet when he was faced with the choice of going on this mission that was doomed to end badly and simply refusing it, he chose the latter.

He’d thought he’d surely retract it a moment later. People were counting on him, after all, they needed him, and now that he knew what would happen, he could avoid it. He just had to be a little more careful, he just had to remember where things first started to spiral out of his control and fix it. It’d all be fine.

But he didn’t.

When his father pushed for him to go, when he questioned his sudden ‘insolence’, Luther stuck by his decision. He was not going.

The discussion went on for several minutes, and it occurred to him that it was probably one of the longest talks he’d ever had with Sir Reginald. Maybe that should have told him something. He’d just always figured that his father was a busy man, with many responsibilities, and he wasn’t supposed to need much guidance, anyway. He was the leader of their group, he should know what he was doing.

But even his newfound courage and defiance had its limits.

So he told him. Little by little, Reginald chipped away at him until he told him about the time-traveling, about the Apocalypse, about how the mission went badly and why, why would he send him to the moon if he never cared about the information that he sent him?

If his father had an answer to that, he didn’t provide it.

No, Reginald only wanted to know more. The moment the Apocalypse was mentioned, it seemed to be all that he heard - Five’s return barely had him bat an eyelid, but he was eager for answers on every other front. And for the first time in his life, Luther could see it, he could see what Diego was always going on about. Cold, calculating. He didn’t ask about the wellbeing of his children, he only cared about the success of the mission.

How had they performed?  
Was the Umbrella Academy reunited?  
How had it happened?  
Why had they lost?

With every answer, Sir Reginald only appeared to grow more and more displeased. Instinctively, Luther changed his stance. He grew apologetical, he tried to shift the blame away from his siblings, saying he hadn’t been a good enough leader, that circumstances had been complicated, that they’d all done their best, that they’d gotten _so close_.

But their father had not been interested in any of that.

“I’m not looking for excuses, Number One, I want results.”

And with that, he’d retreated into his study with strict - if unnecessary, as it was a long-standing rule with which they’d all grown up - instructions that he not be disturbed. The door had closed with soft and resolute thud, but to Luther, it’d sounded like the worst door-slam he’d ever heard.

  


* * *

  


It was his mother who answered the door.

Diego had to bite back tears as he caught sight of her standing on the other side of the opening double-doors - his mother, who he’d lost twice in the past week. His mother, who’d been there for him like no one else throughout most of his life. His mother, who seemed so delighted to see him that Diego’s heart gave a little squeeze of guilt at the bright smile on her lips.

How long had it been since the last time he’d seen her at this point? Five, six years? She deserved so much better than to be locked up in this house with someone who couldn’t even be bothered to give her a room, and yet he’d left her. He’d been the first one out the door, too, so eager to see himself free of his father that he’d neglected to think about one of the most important people in his life. And after that… He sent her gifts every Mother’s Day, but he’d never found it in him to actually visit. Not when it meant seeing his father once again.

“Diego! What a wonderful surprise!” She greeted him, arms open as she invited him in for a hug.

A small sob left his lips, and he quickly covered it up with a cough, though he knew that his mom would know better. She didn’t say a word, she just smiled and closed the distance between them, arms enveloping him in a warm hug.

His eyes fell closed for a moment, and his breathing gently slowed as he relaxed. Grace meant warmth and safety, she meant a kind of security he’d always craved as a kid, and which he found he still desperately needed every time she held him. When he was in her arms, everything was fine. Everything would always be fine.

But all hugs eventually came to an end, and reality hit him like a freight train. This time, that reality was that he was back home, and Reginald was probably around somewhere - Reginald, who he hadn’t seen in twelve years. Reginald, who he’d quite honestly hoped to never see again in his life. Reginald, who was the antithesis of everything he’d been feeling a few moments before, and who quite probably already knew that he was there, because somehow, Sir Reginald Hargreeves always knew more than them.

Diego wondered if it had something to do with his father’s god complex.

“M - mom.” _Picture the word in your mind._ “Hi. I’m sorry… I’m sorry it’s been so long. I didn’t mean to leave you alone here, I always wanted to drop by, but - “

She cut him off, a radiant smile still on her lips. “Nonsense. I haven’t been alone. Your brother Luther keeps me company all day. But I have missed you, Diego. How have you been?”

There was so much he wanted to tell her, so much he’d never had the chance to tell her before their house was torn to ruins with her inside. But he knew that there were more pressing matters to attend to, and he’d have time, right? She didn’t have to die, not anymore. Neither her nor Eudora. He’d make sure of that.

“Good. I’m in the Academy. The Police Academy, I mean. I finish in a few months, and then… I’m gonna do some good, Mom. Some real good.”

No, he wouldn’t.

He knew that in about a month he’d get kicked out, and that a part of him would see it as a good riddance because he’d find it all to be far too ineffective. What good could it do to watch criminals walk free? To watch innocent people get hurt? Eudora always said that it was her methods that got convictions in court, but he still argued that without him a good chunk of those people might never be caught. Some of those witnesses might not have made it.

Then again, he still remembered nights spent awake waiting for Eudora to call him and reassure him that he hadn’t blown an entire case because he hadn’t followed due process. She might give him hell over supposedly not caring, but he did care. Deeply.

“That’s wonderful, dear! Come with me into the kitchen, I’ll make you some dinner. Luther has been very upset the whole day, he hasn’t left his room in hours. Maybe some cordon bleu will cheer him up, what do you think?”

She was already heading towards the kitchen as she spoke, and Diego smiled fondly, following after her. “Sure, Mom.”

“How has the Police Academy been? I remember you used to talk for hours about how much you wanted to do this. I’m so proud of you, Diego.”

He was going to break her heart very soon, wasn’t he? But at least for now he could pretend like everything was okay, for everything truly was okay. He did very well in the course despite how much he felt like everyone - except for Eudora, of course, Eudora always had his back - was against him. He was good, he already had the physical training, it’d all been going very well. Until it wasn’t.

Before he could answer, though, a familiar sound reached his ears. He smiled.

For the first time in his life, he saw his mother drop a dish.

  


* * *

  


Spatial jumping right after waking up from a coma brought on by time traveling while hauling along his six siblings was probably not recommended.

Five would argue, though, that he would also recommend against staying in a hospital being poked and prodded when he was just fine, thank you very much. The dozens of examinations he’d let Klaus and Allison talk him into undergoing seemed to support that. As far as he could tell, his coma had just been exhaustion. A different, more extreme kind of exhaustion, nothing that doctors would have seen before, but one from which he could recover just fine on his own.

So what that he was feeling a little light-headed? He’d be home in just a few minutes, and then he could get a good night’s sleep and a decent meal in him - he could hardly remember his mom’s cooking, but he did know that his father would accept nothing short of perfection, so it had to be good.

Spatial jumps had their limitations, however. Theoretically, his abilities could take him anywhere and to any time, but longer jumps were more complicated - that was where the calculations came in. Unless planned (and nothing about this was even in the realm of planned) shorter jumps were preferred, lest he end up materializing six feet under the earth or inside a wall. Several short jumps, however, were a lot more draining than one long jump.

And maybe, he thought as he tried and failed to hold onto the banister of one of the large staircases at the Academy, he wasn’t quite in the best shape for a trip like that. Maybe he should have walked.

He hit the ground with a loud, clattering sound, and - 

Wait, that made no sense. Human beings didn’t clatter.

No, the banister had fallen with him. But how? And banisters didn’t clatter, either - or at least that one didn’t. Or it shouldn’t.

Oh, hey, that wasn’t the banister.

  


* * *

  


There were people talking in what sounded like a great distance. But they were approaching, or maybe he was approaching them. It was dark, very dark and - wait, no, his eyes were just closed. Maybe if he opened them, everything would make a bit more sense.

His eyelids felt heavy, and it took Five a few moments to manage to wrestle them open, and yet another few for him to figure out how to keep them open. He could hardly remember the last time he’d felt so tired, and part of him wondered whether any of this was worth the effort. Surely he could sleep for just five more minutes?

But people were talking, and Five had always been a curious one.

He wanted to know what was going on, and he wouldn’t settle for later. His tired body would just have to deal with it. Through sheer determination and stubbornness, Five managed to wrench his eyes open, and after a few tentative moments when it felt like they may fall closed once again at any second, he won the battle and convinced them to stay open, his sight slowly adjusting to the light and falling into focus.

The room was familiar, like somewhere you know you should recognize from ancient memories of a different lifetime, but which somehow consistently escapes your grasp.

Until it didn’t.

The infirmary, he was in the infirmary of the Academy. And the people talking - it was Diego and Grace, who were standing near the bed and engaged in a hushed conversation. Five let out a small sigh and let his eyes fall closed again, but it seemed like sleep had left him entirely. Great.

“I can hear you, you know?” He grumbled grumpily as he opened his eyes once again.

Grace beamed.

“I’m sorry, we didn’t mean to wake you. Just go back to sleep, Five. You need some rest, you’ve been overworking yourself far too much. Diego and I found you passed out in the living room.”

Five shook his head. “I’m not doing any more spatial jumps for a while, but I’m not laying around in bed uselessly. We have work to do. Now, where’s Klaus and Allison? They were supposed to meet me at your place, but I’m guessing your friend must have sent them here, too. Have you heard from Vanya yet?”

“Mom’s right, Five, you should get some rest.”

“Of course you’d take her side.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know very well what that’s supposed to mean. Now answer my question. Just because we’ve travelled back in time it doesn’t mean we’ve got time to waste. The Commission isn’t going to let us keep interfering with their plans, they’ll have a contingency for us. The sooner we get to work, the better our chances.”

Diego shook his head, brows pinched together. “Five, it’s not that simple. We don’t even know what we’re supposed to do - it’s not just changing a timeline, it’s - “

He was interrupted by an impatient Five, who’d already sat up on the bed and was proceeding to jump to his feet. “Where are Klaus and Allison and has Vanya called?”

A sigh left Diego’s lips, and he let his arms fall to his side in defeat. “I don’t know, haven’t seen them, and no, Vanya hasn’t called.”

Five paused for a second. That wasn’t good, that wasn’t good at all. They needed everyone on board if they were going to stop this, and now they had Klaus and Allison missing, which meant they also didn’t have Ben, and their key element, Vanya, was still in the wind. That wasn’t good at all.

Before he could say anything, the sound of a phone ringing filled the room, and Grace quickly marched out of the infirmary to answer it, but stopped just a few feet from the door when the sound suddenly cut out. She turned around, confused, but a smile quickly formed on her face once again.

“Your father must have answered it.” She quickly explained, though Five wasn’t quite sure she believed it herself.

They all waited with bated breath for a few minutes, expecting Sir Reginald to appear at the door, scowl in place. When the familiar sound of that cane hitting the floor rhythmically didn’t come, however, they started to relax.

“Maybe it was a wrong number.” Diego offered.

“No, no, it wasn’t.” Klaus was peering in from the door, shifting nervously as Five remembered he’d done right before informing them that he’d spoken to their father. He had news, he figured. “Uh - Allison and I were just coming in when the phone rang and I answered. It’s - it’s Vanya.”


	6. Vanya

The clock on her beside table read 3:50pm by the time she woke up.

Vanya quickly sat up, heart drumming inside her chest, and promptly began to get dressed. She was going to be late, she had lessons that afternoon and - goodness, she didn’t even know who her students were that day. She’d missed rehearsal and…

Her concert.

Was that this evening? She wasn’t ready, and she’d slept the day away, she’d missed her last rehearsal - she’d screwed it all up. She finally made first chair, and she was throwing it all away. It was no wonder, she thought to herself, that it took her so long to get it. She wasn’t like Helen Cho - she couldn’t remember Helen being late even once, and she’d been in the orchestra for years. She had it together. Vanya hardly believed she could aspire to that.

But she could still salvage what was left of the day, so it was time to get up and get moving. Lessons first, she had a duty to her students, orchestra or not. And then… Then she’d practice as much as she could until it was time to leave.

Goodness, she was shaking.

Where were her meds?

Oh, right. She’d run out, and she’d been doing fine without them. Leonard agreed, Leonard…

Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.

She didn’t even feel her knees give out. She just suddenly fell to the floor, head cradled in her hands, tears spilling from her eyes. Leonard, she’d killed Leonard. She hadn’t meant to, not really - she’d just gotten so angry and he… He’d done such horrible, horrible things. She’d lost control. Her emotions had just - manifested themselves in the form of whatever sound manipulation she could do, she still didn’t fully understand it. And Allison…

Oh, god, Allison.

But she was okay, she was okay because she’d seen her at - 

The concert.

The concert had already happened, and she - she’d almost killed them, hadn’t she? Or had she finished the job, had she -

Pogo.

Oh, no, she’d actually done that, hadn’t she? And she remembered, she remembered that she’d meant to, she’d fully meant it. She’d been ready to burn it all down, with her siblings inside or not. She remembered anger unlike anything that she’d ever felt before, she remembered the feeling of betrayal, of being lied to her whole life, she remembered years and years of abuse suddenly coming to light with the force of a freight train. She’d never felt like that before, she could hardly remember having ever had any emotion with anything near that intensity before.

But that didn’t make it okay, did it?

That wouldn’t bring Pogo back.

And her siblings - she still didn’t know what had happened to them. What if they were all dead, too? She couldn’t live with that thought. She’d hurt them, she knew she had, even Diego and Klaus who seemed to have tried to help her.

And the Academy - she’d razed it to the ground, hadn’t she?

Oh, no.

She was crying, sobbing uncontrollably on the floor, and she knew that she should do something, that she should call them, check the news, try to figure out what happened between last night and now, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t breathe, she could hardly think.

It was her fault.

It was all her fault.

How could she have done that?

She remembered a time when she was gentle. She remembered a time when she and Klaus would play dolls she’d always insist on giving them a happy ending because she refused to be cruel, even when it was all make-believe (she could see that Klaus’ story ended differently, but he’d humor her every single time, without fail). But that wasn’t her anymore, was it?

Now she was the girl who’d killed her family and destroyed her home, and it was all what? An act of vengeance? It wouldn’t fix the past.

It made the future impossible to fix.

What was she supposed to do now? How was she supposed to carry on with her life? She couldn’t. She’d made a huge mistake, and one that she couldn’t fix, one she could never fix. But there had to be something she could do, there had to be some kind of path for her to follow now. She couldn’t just sob on the ground for the rest of her life. She wanted to, it felt like the only real alternative, but she knew she couldn’t. She owed her family more than that.

She’d go to the police, she decided. She’d turn herself in, and -

And what?

She didn’t know. But it was a start, it was the right thing to do.

Her eyes were red and puffy, still brimming with tears. She could hardly see, and yet she trudged on, trying to make her way to the front door. More than once, she hardly managed to catch herself before she came crashing onto the floor, but it was only when she reached the dining table that she stopped.

She’d nearly hit her head on the table as her foot caught on the chair. It’d been a very close call, with her forehead stopping inches away from the hardwood tabletop, her nose almost touching the newspaper that laid on top of it.

The newspaper that was dated April 26, 2012. 

  


* * *

  


She’d sat on the couch for nearly an hour by the time she decided on a course of action.

Her mind was still struggling to understand what had happened through the emotional turmoil churning instead of her. She was sure, she was absolutely, undeniably sure, that yesterday, she’d been in 2019. The seven years in between now and then had most certainly already happened. She remembered writing her book just about two years from this date. She remembered making it into the orchestra in just a few months. All of that had happened. And yet there she was, in a time before it.

Time travel. That had to be it. Right?

Five could do it. Five had done it. She’d watched with her own two eyes as he arrived from another time-frame. But why would he? Why would he send her into the past?

Maybe he’d done it to save their siblings. She couldn’t remember how things ended at the theater. She didn’t remember even ever making it home. Maybe, she thought to herself, Five had gotten to her before they died. Maybe he’d sent her into the past so that she couldn’t harm them in the present. It was a good plan, save for the fact that she’d eventually get to 2019 again. But maybe things would be better the second time around. Maybe.

She had to be sure, though. She had to be sure that that was what happened, she had to be sure that she was really in 2012.  
And so she picked up the phone, and she called the one place she could think of, somewhere that wouldn’t even be standing anymore if she hadn’t actually time-travelled: the Umbrella Academy.

Her heart raced as she waited for the dial tone to connect, and when someone picked up, she felt like she could cry. She was in 2012. She had time to fix her mistakes. Somehow, she’d gotten a second chance, and she was not going to waste it.  
But then something very unexpected happened.

Instead of her mother’s voice or Luther’s, or even their father’s or Pogo’s, it was Klaus’ voice that greeted her at the other end of the line. Klaus, at the Academy. That couldn’t be right. She knew for a fact that he’d already left by then, and she highly doubted that he was any more prone to making social calls at the Academy than any of them.

So what was he doing there?

She only realized that she’d gone several seconds in silence since Klaus’ initial hello when he spoke up again.

“Vanya?”

“Uh - yeah. Yeah, it’s me, Klaus. What are you doing at the Academy?”

“Oh, we’re all here, I think. It’s a big family reunion, and no one is even dead or getting married. Well, except for Ben, he’s dead, but that’s old news.” There was a small stretch of silence, followed by Klaus blowing raspberries at someone. Then, he continued. “Hey, listen, Vanya, we’ve kind of been waiting for you to call, and - no, wait, first… Are you okay? You seemed kind of uh - well, you must’ve really worn yourself out yesterday, and if bringing all of us here kind of put Five in a short coma, I’m guessing you’re probably not in a much better shape.”

She hesitated before answering, but she rushed to speak when she heard Klaus take a breath to get started again. “Yeah, I’m - I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.”

“Okay. Okay, then - do you think you could come over? We’ve all got a lot to talk about.”

“I - I’m sorry, Klaus. I’m so sorry. I hurt you, I hurt all of you and I - god, I killed Pogo. I destroyed our house with all of you still inside of it. I could’ve killed all of you!” She was starting to cry again, tears already falling freely from her eyes, her voice tight.

“Vanya, that’s - that’s in the future. It doesn’t have to happen again.” She could sense some hesitation in his voice, and it worried her. Klaus wasn’t one to say calculated things, he usually just said whatever was on his mind. “Just… Just come over, okay? We’ll talk about all of this.”

She didn’t want to go.

The last time she’d gone over to try and explain herself, to make them understand, she’d ended up locked in that sound-proof cell, and she couldn’t do that again. She was terrified. But she was also terrified of who she’d been the previous night, and she didn’t know what else to do, where else to go. So she was trusting them, trusting Klaus, trusting that she knew her brother well enough to know that he’d never knowingly lead her into a trap. He would never lock her up and throw away the key.

That just wasn’t him.

“Okay.” Her voice is little more than a whisper, and she couldn’t be sure that Klaus heard her, so she repeated herself, her voice a little louder, a little stronger. “Okay. I’ll - I’ll meet you guys at the Academy.”

Klaus’ reply carried such a cheery tone that it hardly seemed to fit the conversation, but she was used to that. “Okay, we’ll see you in a few, then! Oh, Allison says hi! No, wait, now she’s saying to forget that, she can say hit when you’re here.”

There was a muffled ‘Klaus’ followed by a playful ‘ow’, and Vanya couldn’t help but let out a small laugh, shaking her head. Trust Klaus to manage to get a laugh out of her even in a situation like that.

“I’ll see you soon.” She promised, hanging up the phone.

A sigh left her lips, and she closed her eyes. She couldn’t believe she was really doing this, she couldn’t believe that all of this was really happening. Her eyes were still stinging with tears, she felt absolutely exhausted - she wanted to go to bed, not go confront the family she’d nearly killed in a different timeline, not face Luther and the very real possibility that he might try to lock her away once again.

But she had to, she knew she did.

It was the least that she could do, she figured, after everything she’d put them through. The anger she’d felt the previous day hadn’t simply dissipated - it was still there, lurking in the back of her mind. She could feel it, and she knew that it wasn’t entirely unjustified. Her siblings had mistreated her for years, they’d excluded her, they’d gone along with their father when he called her ordinary, when he encouraged them to ostracize her. But despite all of that, she still loved them, and she _knew_ that what she’d done was wrong.

She knew she had a lot to answer for, and she wasn’t running away from it.

So she picked up her coat - and she almost laughed because she didn’t even remember it, and it just made it all that much more obvious how ridiculous this situation was - and she put it on, then she grabbed her purse and headed out the door.

Time to face the music.


End file.
